How y'all doing today? Y'all good. All right. All right. You guys. OK. If I just be me, you OK? If I be me. All right. So I, I go to, I go to different schools, University of Minnesota University Pacific, all the public schools around here. Um Sometimes Christian schools I speak and it's really just an honor to, to do that type of work. But man, this is a huge honor to be in front of you guys. I I John man, I just thank you so much for the opportunity. I remember uh that time in that coffee shop and I remember, you know, him telling me I was gonna, you know, I should go into ministry and I was like, oh, that's a heavy, that's a heavy burden. I, I don't know if I can hand that. And I think a lot of times when uh you know, people call something out of us, sometimes it's hard for us to accept it, right? It's hard for us to accept that we could become that type of person because the only thing I ever thought of myself as was a baseball player, I really had put my whole identity in the game of baseball. And I think how many guys have ever, like, you know, as long as the thing that you're doing is going good, you're going good. You guys ever feel like that, right? But basically everybody here it happens everywhere I go to speak that, you know, as long as, you know, your finance are good, as long as your relationship is good. As long as you're performing good, you feel good. And I was trapped in that. I said, you know, as long as I could get to the major leagues, like I'm gonna have worth and value, that's where I thought worth and value was found was in the goals and things that I wanted to accomplish. And it wasn't that I didn't grow up a Christian because I did, I grew up, you know, Lutheran in, in Minnesota, but I, I, you know, I was, I was a fan of Jesus. I was a fan of God. I wasn't really a follower, right? I, I wanted the things that God could give me, right. But I, I wasn't really ready to give him everything of me. I wanted all the blessings that he could, he could promote me, he could give me more gifts, he could give me more abilities, right? I could, I could get close to God and he could give me all of these things. That's, that's what I wanted from him. And if I had to be a good kid to get it. I, I was gonna try and do that and I'm just being real with you like that. That was my relationship with God. And then, and then I get hurt. Um you know, I go to University of Minnesota and then I get drafted by the Seattle Mariners and boom, I'm faced with this, this injury and I have a decision to make. Am I gonna be like everybody else at the complex? Am I gonna be like everybody else in professional baseball when they get hurt? You know, everybody around me was drinking, they were partying, they were rehabbing in Peoria, Arizona just like I was right. And there was, there was choices that I had to make. Was that gonna be like the world or was I gonna choose a different path? Because I, I had seen, I had seen the way that the world was going, at least for me, I'd seen all the bad decisions I could make on my own. Right? In college, the, the, the way that I was, you know, drinking, the way that I was using alcohol because I couldn't articulate my feelings. So I numbed them out, right? I didn't really know how to handle that situation. Then I get promoted and, and, and God still uses me. Now I'm now I'm in professional baseball, but now I'm hurt you. Remove the thing that I, you know, base my life off base my life off of the parameter that I live by. As long as the game was good, I was good, but now the game is gone. Who am I? I remember sitting in front of my couch on a, you know, sitting on my couch and I feel the Holy Spirit come upon me like who are you? Who are you? Who are you Lance? And that was the first time in my life. The Jersey wasn't on me anymore. I wasn't gonna go to practice. The next day I was gonna go to rehab. The next day I was gonna be out for at least 12 months because I needed Tommy John surgery. And I didn't have an answer to that question. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know whose that was. I knew of God, but I didn't know God. And it radically changed my life when I got more involved with John, I got more involved with Dan and Dan started to minister to me. He started to show me some things. Matthew 1039 says if you cling to your life, you will lose it. If you give up your life for me, you will find it. That changes my life. If you cling to your life, you will lose it. If you give up your life for me, you will find it. And I finally made a decision to rededicate my life to Jesus. And I went on a new path. I said, God, you take, you, take baseball, you do whatever you want with baseball in the back of my mind, I'm like, if you take me to the major leagues, I will shout your name from the mountain tops, right? I will shout it. God, let's do that. Let's have a comeback story. That's what I was thinking in my head that he was gonna do. But after I gave my life to rededicated my life to Christ, I needed Tommy John. Then I had loose fragmented bones. Then I had pr P then I had stress fracture 2016, 2017, 2018. And everything got worse for me in my career. But my personal life started to flourish because of this woman over here, my wife Kaylee, give me a shout out to my wife Kyle. So I miss my career struggles. I'm blossoming in a relationship. I meet her seven days. Uh after um I got hurt initially with Seattle, I met her in a bar in Tempe. So even though you don't think God is moving, he's moving even in the deepest and darkest places. He's moving in your life, even in our disobedience. God moves, even in our bad choices. He's moving. And I and I am, I am so thankful that he was that night in Tempe when I met her. But things, things really got crazy with our relationship, got married. Now I got two kids, but everything in my career I is plummeting. It's getting worse. And this time I have a decision, I am I, am I gonna treat this life like I'm being planted or am I gonna treat this life like I'm being buried? And I think we all have that decision every single day. Whatever happens to you in life. Are you being planted or are you being buried? Because if I, if I were to, to watch two people right now and I were to go watch them, look at the, they're, they're in a garden and I see two people digging holes. You guys seen that book holes or you've seen the movie holes, right? So if you watch two people dig holes, I wouldn't know if somebody was planting something or, or somebody was burying something, right? Because they're both digging a hole the same way. They're both digging, right? But then it, it the only difference between what's being buried and what's being planted is what is, what goes in the ground. The organism that gets placed in the ground, whether it's dead or whether it's alive, determines whether or not you're being planted or you're being buried, you throw petrified frogs in there, you throw your old goldfish when you bury something, right? How many guys killed one of those before? Yeah, I, I killed my fair share. But when you plant something, you plant a seed into the ground that has an opportunity to grow. And here's the craziest thing about being planted. If I'm gonna go plant something. I wanna go deep because when you go deep into the soil, you don't understand. It's more rich down there. There's more nutrients down there. Like there's more nitrogen, there's more water. So the deeper the seed goes, the more opportunity it has to develop roots. And that was me, I was being planted into the ground deep and I was being put Tommy John Pr P injury, injury, injury, deeper and deeper and deeper. And here's the thing with life when we get, when we wanna get stronger, when we wanna get ripped, you know, January is coming up, you guys are gonna make some New Year's resolutions to get fit and you're gonna stick to it this year in 2024. Amen. Y'all gonna stick to it this time. Come on, this is your season 2024. This is your year. You actually do it. And that's what I'm telling myself. This is the year. Let's get it. But in order for me to get strong in order for me to get ripped in order for me to do anything that I want to do in physical fitness, I have to put more weight on. If I'm gonna get stronger and more fit, more weights gotta go on. But for some reason in life, we think that when more weight gets put upon us, we get confused. Oh no, no, no, this shouldn't be happening. No, son, no daughter. Yes, it should the more difficult life becomes, the more more weight gets placed on your back, the better and the more the deeper your roots can grow. And I hope that when you get planted, when things happen to you strife and turmoil, when you get down there, you realize that who's down there is Jesus and you can cling to a root that is Jesus Christ because you have a harvest that's coming. That can only happen that harvest can, you can only hold that harvest up when you have deep roots in Jesus Christ. When you have deep roots in Jesus Christ, he can finally, you can finally hold up what he's trying to give to you and we stumble because we don't see fruits. That's what happens. I see this all the time. I see so many potential in young students. I see so many potential in people that have been living their whole life. Wondering where are my fruits at? Where are my fruits? When are they gonna come? When are you gonna stay in the same soil and do what God has called you to do? It's impossible. It's impossible to reap a harvest. If you keep moving your seed, God has something for you, you have a unique gifting within you, but you got to give that seed some time to grow. And for me, I didn't see any fruits. I was under the surface making moves DB B building bigger roots on Jesus Christ. But all of my fruits externally weren't happening, but I had a choice to make. And today the title, the message today is generous choices. How to make generous choices in your life. John talked about generous being a virtue in the last few weeks and how it was the virtue of a noble man. So today I'm gonna talk about generous being doing more than what's expected. That's definition number three on Google. OK. Doing more than what's expected. Doing more than what's expected. And I started to, to research this and figure out, you know, what is the most generous choice of all time, the most generous choice of all time. I'm thinking about it. What have I done? What have other people done? And it just comes down to Jesus man. That's the most generous choice of all time doing more than what's expected. Jesus went to the cross, he carried his own cross, he was beaten, he was whipped and he hangs on that cross nails so that you could have eternal life and you can have it today. You can have it, you can have heaven, you can have it. You just believe in him. That's the most generous choice of all time. So he gave us that. What are we doing with our life? And here's the thing I don't want you to, to think this is a performance mindset. It's not, you don't need to do anything else. Like let's make that straight there. Isn't a prerequisite that requires you to do more, to have eternal life in heaven. You accept Jesus Christ. That is enough. But what if you could do more for the kingdom? What if more people could have that blessing because of you? What if more people could come to Jesus? What if more people could build the Kingdom of God because of the way that you live your life? You gotta make some radically different choices. And that's what I want to talk about today. How to make five choices that will make a more generous life, a more fruitful life for you, y'all with that. Let's do it. So we're gonna dive in the Colossians uh three. And I love this book. I, I stole it from my wife. She's got the best Bible in the house. And this one it says in Colossians three, what Christians should do? This is a blueprint for what we should do. So we're gonna read Colossians 31 through 17. It says since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth for you died to this life. And your real life is hidden with Christ and God. And when and when Christ, who is your life is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory so put to death, the sinful earthly things lurking within. You have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust and evil desires. Don't be greedy for a greedy person is an idolater worshiping the things of this world because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still a part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander and dirty language. Don't lie to each other for you have been stripped off of your old sinful nature in all its wicked deeds, put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your creator and become like him in this new life. It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or gentile circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized slave or free Christ is all that matters. And He lives in all of us since God chose you to be his holy people. He loves, you must clothe yourself a tenderheartedness, mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember the Lord forgave you. So you must forgive others above all clothe yourself with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts for as member as one body, you are called to live in peace and always be thankful. Let the message about Christ and all its richness, fill your hearts, teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts and whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to him, to God, the Father Amen. Can I get an Amen on that? Amen. So we're gonna talk about your old nature versus your new nature, who you used to be versus who you can be, right? Because of Jesus Christ, you have a spirit running within you that gives you the opportunity to make different choices in the world. So number one, your old nature, the five ways to go from your old nature to your new nature and make generous choices. Number one is proximity. We need to go from proximity to presence when you go from proximity to presence. This one thing that I talk about all the time, every single morning with God. God help me to be more present, help me to, to, to, to listen to Kyle. And I remember my, my mom back in the day, she'd always say, are you listening to me? No, I wasn't. I was thinking about baseball, right? I was in my mom's proximity, right? But I wasn't, I wasn't present and it's the same thing when I'm at home with these kids with, with my wife. There is a big difference between me being in proximity to somebody. Yeah. Yeah. You're at lunch with somebody and you're on your phone, you're right there with them. You're right there with your kids. They're getting second hand screen, right? Second hand smoke. What about second hand screen time? They're getting you, your eyes are more focused on this device than anybody else. So we gotta go from the world is we, we, we are, we are trying to be in proximity to people, but we really need to be in God's presence. So there's all these things that I do that I used to do. I used to, I used to try to like butter up to God like God, I really need you today on the field. I really need you today. I remember being in college doing that all the time. I would go to the Bible study. I would try to get in proximity to God. I would try to do things for God so that I could get things from God. Anybody ever been there. Yeah, you're trying to do things and be in his proximity. But what we gotta do is change. We gotta be in his presence, we gotta get in his presence and soak up his glory and just sit there in peace because that's gonna change the way that you choose life and that's gonna change your choices, being in his presence. And that's a really difficult practice that you can start tonight that you can start tomorrow. 2024 goals. Let's not push them off because we know the holidays get crazy. Let's start them. Now. You wanna be in God's presence, more be in it just soak it up. One thing I try to do God, you fulfill me, you fulfill me. When I try to let the world fulfill me. Or if I put the expectation on my wife to fulfill me, my wife is beautiful. She's amazing. She is the best wife in the world. But if I put the expectation on her that she is gonna fulfill my heart, we're human, we're gonna be left unfulfilled at some point. At some moment, you will be unfulfilled. So how can we say God, you fulfill me? Now, I operate from a full heart and I get in his presence. That's what I want you to do. Get in God's presence. Number two, we gotta stop operating in our own power and start operating in his promptings. So our own power when we, when things are going good financially in our relationships with our kids, right? Our kids are behaving, our kids are doing amazing things. You're doing amazing things at work. It's easy for us not to consult God. It's easy for us to just say, you know what? I got this one, I got this one this time and we start thinking and acting, thinking and acting and we start to make decisions in our own power. We think, oh man, look at the life I've built and we forget that our success has come from the source, the source that is God, the source that is Jesus Christ. The blessings that have come upon your life are from Him. It's from nothing else. It's not from manifestations, it's not from the rocks, it's not from anything but God. And whether you acknowledge that or not is from Him. So how can we operate in His promptings? And what I mean by that is when you get in God's presence, you're gonna start to make different choices and then you're gonna start to hear different things. And when I say His promptings, how many times do we ignore the Holy Spirit? How many times do we just let the person you're supposed to be praying for? We let it go and we don't act on the promptings of the spirit. There is something I talk about in our small group, we're talking about. How do you discern the word of God? Like how do you discern when He's trying to speak to you? You got the the enemy, you have your flesh and then you have God, those are the 33 voices that you hear. When it's of the Holy Spirit, it's gonna be positive. God's never gonna speak negative upon you. He might challenge you, right? But when it's of God, that's gonna be a positive voice when it's of our flesh. Those are usually selfish things, things, at least for me, at least for me the things that I want. God. God, I show me, show me this, show me that those are usually selfish things. And then you have the, the enemy is trying to get you to, to do wrong things. He's trying to get you to go back to your old ways. Go back to your old nature. So how can you listen to the promptings of God? I'll give you 44 examples of this two times when I did it two times when I didn't. One time at Costco, there's this lady who had um who had just had chemotherapy. You could tell that she was walking really slow. Um And I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to go pray for her. And this is one of those times where I'm like, gosh, it's really busy here. It's Costco II, I don't know God, I didn't take it and I still remember it. I still remember it. What if we just acted on his promptings? And I didn't pray for her another time. I was coming back from Anthem. I was by myself. I was in my truck and I see this teenage girl walking on the, on the pathway right next to the desert and I feel the Holy Spirit turn your truck around, go talk to her man. What an inconvenience my flesh isn't gonna tell me that because that's an inconvenience to my life. The enemy is not gonna tell me that because the enemy doesn't want good things, but that's, that's of the Holy Spirit. Turn around and go talk to that girl. I don't know what's gonna happen to that girl. I wrestle, I wrestle, I wrestle 345 minutes. Go by. I turn around. I go back, I pull out, I try to park in a parking lot. I try to run. I'm, I'm literally running. I'm trying to find her. I'm trying to find her. I'm trying to find her. Never found her. I don't know what God would, why he needed me to talk to her, but I ignored it. Then there's times where I've accepted it and I've seen some crazy things happen when I was playing minor league baseball. You make about $500 every two weeks. It's not that glorious, right? You get to the major leagues, 80,000 every two weeks or 100,000, right? But I was in the minor leagues and I remember it was Christmas time and I go into the Nike store and I meet this kid named Michael and I'm chatting with him and, um, he's telling me about the Nikes and I'm asking him about his life. He seemed kind of down, he's telling me this whole story and you know what's going on just how he's not gonna be able to make it home back to, uh, back to Seattle for Christmas. And, um, in that moment, I just felt the Holy Spirit buy this man a plane ticket home. I took the opportunity and I bought him a plane ticket so that he could go home to see his family. And I still talk to him to this day. I still talk to Michael. Eight years later we chat on Instagram. It's crazy. It's crazy. So there are promptings that are coming to you. Are you gonna listen last little story? Luke. Luke 12 comes upon me. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in my buddy's house. I'm up at the University of Minnesota. I'm about to go speak to the University of base baseball team. Huge moment for me and I, I'm sitting there, the kids are in bed. Everybody's in bed. It's like 930 at night and I'm wondering like is like, what do you want me to speak about? God? Why do you have me here? Why have you blessed me to be here? What do they need to hear? And I hear this voice. Luke 12. I don't know. New Luke 12 by heart. It's not something I've, I I've really put a lot of time into studying. So I know it's not from me, right? I know it's not a verse that I'm very familiar with. I open up my bible, I decide, OK, I'm gonna look into Luke 12 and I open up my bible and it says as soon as I get to Luke 1212, it says for when the time is right. I will tell you what to say for when the time is right. I'll tell you what to say. So discerning his promptings has power in your life. You don't need your own power, you need his y'all with me on that. Amen. Amen. And the third thing to go from your old nature to your new nature is how do we go from our own pleasures to persevering in what God has called us to do. Here's the thing like our own pleasures. It tells us in the book right here. So put to death, sinful earthly things lurking within. You have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. If there's one thing that II, I struggle with the most as a male is probably lust. I have a beautiful wife, right? Why? Why do I struggle with that? But I, but I, but but I've asked God like help me to hate sin, help me to hate these pleasures even if I'm never ever, ever gonna act on it. What is it doing to the condition of my heart when I give in? When I look, when I shouldn't look and that you have your own thing that you keep giving into that is changing the condition of your heart. And we may not, we may not think it does, but subconsciously, it's changing you. But what's even more powerful is subconsciously, this changes you persevere in this. What if we all got in the word more? And I hear all the time from New Christians. Well, I don't understand what it means. I don't know what I'm reading. It's ok. This book is alive. It's reading you. This book is trying to read you. It's changing your subconscious mind. It's changing the way that you think in all things. This book has power and it comes to life when you read it and you give it time and you marinate on it and you get in God's presence with it. God, I don't understand what this thing says. It's OK. It's trying to understand you. It is alive, there is power in this, there is power in this and persevere in that because the whole world is gonna try to tell you, you don't gotta look at it. You don't need the Bible, you can do this in your own strength and then they're gonna try. The, the enemy is gonna try to get you to look back to your past. So go from your old nature to your new nature. Number four is your past, but we gotta look to receive God's peace. There's some things that have happened to you for me, I put my whole identity in what I did. But sometimes we put our identity in what's been said to us or what's been done to us and those things lock us up and if the enemy can't keep you from heaven, you gotta remember Lucifer was kicked out of heaven. He was booted out to the ground, he was booted out to rule the earth. And if he, if you made the decision to follow Jesus Christ, and you said, I wanna follow Jesus. And I, and you know heaven is, is your destination. When you die, the enemy in Satan is gonna gonna try to make your life a living hell. So if our eternal destination after death is heaven, the devil's job is to make your life a living hell. And he does that through your own choices. He does that to try to bring you back to your old pain. He does that when you get into a situation, he says, oh, but remember this, oh but remember the decision you made, then he's gonna try to get you to think about your past. Instead, we need to the worship in God's peace in his presence and listen to his promptings and say enough is enough. God, I need you. Give me your peace today. Give me your peace with this decision. Help me to think, pray and marinate on your word today. Help me to go into this life and be who you call me to be in. The last step, to make more generous choices in your life, to live a more generous life, to be who you're supposed to be. We gotta go from our old nature to our new nature. Our old nature is performance. Our new nature is our purpose. I was locked up in my performance, my performance of the game, the performance of your post, the performance at your job, whatever it is that you're trying to perform in that is your old nature. That doesn't dictate who you are, that doesn't dictate who you're called to be. That doesn't dictate how you should feel about yourself. It is what it is. I had a buddy that I played baseball with for like 10 years, Tony Schefty. He always used to say this. It is what it is. Lance, it is what it is. We were captains on the baseball team in high school. He always said, Lance, you talk too much. It was true. I did, I always try to fire everybody up, but Tony would just say it is what it is and I love that, love that man. But we gotta go from our performance to our purpose and this, this is my calling on you today for 2024. You have this thing that you're going through. The crazy love give invite serve your purpose is to build the kingdom of God. I used to think my purpose was my performance on the field. It's not all of our, all of our purpose in life is to build the kingdom of God. That's what our purpose is. When I got done playing baseball, I was crying like that. That was sanctifying. I was done with something that I love so much and, and, and, and then I had the decision to make. I was like God, like what do you want me to do? I was praying to God like, what do you want me to do with my life? I'm selling real estate. I'm doing solar like all these different things, these sales jobs. And I finally get a word from the Holy Spirit. He goes, Lance, Lance. It has nothing to do with what you're doing. It's how you're doing, It has nothing to do with what you're doing is how you're doing it. Because your purpose is to build the Kingdom of God. And you can do that at the grocery store. You can do that as a janitor. You can do it as a doctor. You can do it as an athlete, you can do it as a student, you can do it as a business professional. You can do it as a lawyer. You can do it wherever you're at. You build the Kingdom of God and it's not what you're doing. It's how you do it. You build it, you build the Kingdom of God with how you treat other people. How do you serve them? Do you pray for them? This is an ABC world. Anything but Christ. And we get so scared to share the gospel. We get so scared to talk about God because what if, what if they don't receive it? More people are hungry for the gospel than ever before. More people need hope than ever. Before and you can be the vessel. You can be the one in the office that prays for somebody. Take the chance, take it. You're not gonna get that opportunity. If it wasn't from God, he is trying to pour out blessings onto other people through you. That's what your purpose is. So what can you do with your gifting? You have a unique gift in calling, lean into that, lean into your uniqueness. That's a great place to start to serve things that you're naturally good at serve there. You're gregarious. You're outgoing. Go, be a greeter. You're more introverted, go be with the kids. Lean into the things you're already good at serving those capacities. And there's seasons of serving y'all. I don't, I don't wanna place guilt on any one of you. There's seasons of serving. I see my wife every single day sacrifice everything that she has so that she could be the best mom that she could be. Maybe there's some moms out here. You're just like I am. I, how much more can I handle? And I see Kayle, I look at her and I see her at the end of the day, she's tired. She's not meant to go serve other places. She's meant to serve in our home. And that's enough for this season. We live in this culture that says more, more, more, more, more and I'm, I'm all about it. Iii I do love that part of it, but there are seasons that you gotta identify in your life. When is it time to run? But when is it time to just sit in his peace and presence and know that I'm doing enough as a mom that I'm doing enough wherever I'm at. That's my encouragement to you today. Don't be of this world but make choices that are generous that you're doing more than what's expected because Jesus already did more than what we expected for us. Can I get an amen on that? That's right. Can I pray for y'all? Father God? I just lift up this whole congregation mission grove. Lord, that they would be vessels of hope. They would be vessels of change that they would make radically different choices that honor you Lord. And they would continue to do the choices that they're already making, that honor you Lord, that they, they would go out and be abundant and always financially serving. They would be abundant in, in their conversations, abundant in their prayers. Lord, that they would do all these things for your glory and your purpose without selfish ambition. Lord God, we just say I love you. I pray a blessing over them. I pray peace over them in 2024. Lord help us to be more like Jesus, help us be more generous in our choices, help us to love you God with radical love because we know that's all we get in return to pray over this all in Jesus name. Amen.